United Nations delegation in Dhaka to investigate the July killings

A 3-member UN team has arrived in Dhaka to investigate the brutality of the Sheikh Hasina government in suppressing the student uprising, especially the indiscriminate shootings, killings and human rights violations.

The team reached Dhaka on Wednesday midnight. It is known that the team will initially do information research.

The delegation will go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday (August 22) morning. The meeting is scheduled with Ambassador Riaz Hamidullah. He is currently serving as Assistant Foreign Secretary in the ministry.

The three-member team will be led by Rory Mungoven, head of the Asia-Pacific region of the United Nations High Commissioner's Office, to discuss the preliminary findings. At this time in Dhaka, they will discuss with the participants and finalize all the issues including the work flow, process and conditions. The team will ultimately develop a framework for the investigation. Later the Fact Finding Mission will do the final investigation.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report last week on the recent protests in Bangladesh. It said law and order forces used “unnecessary” and “excessive” force during the quota reform movement.

Foreign Affairs Adviser Touhid Hossain said earlier that the interim government is ready to help the United Nations to investigate the casualties in the movement. What the government wants is an impartial investigation. The position of this government is very clear and transparent. It is our principled decision that those who committed these crimes and those who ordered them must be brought to justice and that the United Nations should assist in this endeavour.

Gwen Lewis, UN resident coordinator in Dhaka, said that the UN technical expert team will come and do the preliminary investigation. What will be their mandate (politics), how they will work with the government, will be further discussed. The delegation will finalize the preliminary investigation work by discussing various issues including their terms of reference (scope of work), time frame of work.

It has been reported from Geneva that when the United Nations is going to investigate the quota reform movement in Bangladesh, some international human rights organizations are pushing to raise the issue in the UN Human Rights Council. According to diplomatic analysts, it is not appropriate to raise the discussion in the Human Rights Council at this time with respect to the UN investigation.

Incidentally, the United Nations reported that more than 630 students died during the anti-discrimination student movement. The UN will conduct an impartial investigation into the killing of these students.

Bangladesh /SBT